Effects of TV and Cable News Viewing on Climate Change Opinion, Knowledge, and Behavior
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6/15/2021 Effects of TV and Cable News Viewing on Climate Change Opinion, Knowledge, and Behavior | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science
Effects of TV and Cable News Viewing on Climate Change
Opinion, Knowledge, and Behavior
Lauren Feldman, School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.367
Published online: 22 November 2016
Summary
For the general public, the news media are an important source of information about climate
change. They have significant potential to influence public understanding and perceptions of
the issue. Television news, because of its visual immediacy and authoritative presentation, is
likely to be particularly influential. Numerous studies have shown that television news can
affect public opinion directly and indirectly through processes such as agenda setting and
framing. Moreover, even in a fragmented media environment largely dominated by online
communication, television remains a prominent medium through which citizens follow
news about science issues. Given this, scholars over the last several decades have endeavored
to map the content of television news reporting on climate change and its effects on public
opinion and knowledge. Results from this research suggest that journalists’ adherence to
professional norms such as balance, novelty, dramatization, and personalization, along with
economic pressures and sociopolitical influences, have produced inaccuracies and
distortions in television news coverage of climate change. For example, content analyses
have found that U.S. network television news stories tend to over-emphasize dramatic
impacts and imagery, conflicts between political groups and personalities, and the
uncertainty surrounding climate science and policy. At the same time, those skeptical of
climate change have been able to exploit journalists’ norms of balance and objectivity to
amplify their voices in television coverage of climate change. In particular, the increasingly
opinionated 24-hour cable news networks have become a megaphone for ideological
viewpoints on climate change. In the United States, a coordinated climate denial movement
has used Fox News to effectively spread its message discrediting climate science. Coverage
on Fox News is overwhelmingly dismissive of climate change and disparaging toward
climate science and scientists. Coverage on CNN and MSNBC is more accepting of climate
change; however, while MSNBC tends to vilify the conservative opposition to climate science
and policy, and occasionally exaggerates the impacts of climate change, CNN sends more
mixed signals. Survey and experimental analyses indicate that these trends in television
news coverage of climate change have important effects on public opinion and may, in
particular, fuel confusion and apathy among the general U.S. public and foster opinion
extremity among strong partisans.
Keywords: climate change, television, network news, cable news, public opinion, persuasion, framing, polarization,
journalistic norms, Fox News
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Subjects: Communication
For the general public, the news media are an important source of information about climate
change (Hansen, 2010; Nelkin, 1995). Most lay citizens do not regularly read the primary
scientific literature. Moreover, climate change is largely abstract and intangible, and its effects
are not immediately observable. Because climate change is often beyond the personal experience
of individuals, the media are crucial for translating the issue for the public. Indeed, scholars
increasingly recognize the inextricable link between science and media. Scheufele (2014), for
example, refers to “science as mediated reality,” given that most citizens hear about science
issues, including climate change, not from direct exposure to science and scientists but indirectly
through media. These mediated realities have significant potential to influence public
understanding and perceptions of scientific topics such as climate change.
The news media have reported on climate change at least since the late 1980s, albeit
inconsistently (Wilson, 2000). During this time, scientists, environmental advocates, and some
policy makers have argued with increasing resolve that climate change is caused by human
activities and will have significant negative consequences for the planet. Despite widespread
agreement within the scientific community about the reality and urgency of anthropogenic
climate change (Stocker et al., 2013), public opinion, at least in the United States, has remained
largely ambivalent. Climate change consistently ranks at or near the bottom of a list of more than
twenty issues that Americans feel are important for government to address (Pew Research
Center, 2015). Moreover, since the late 1990s, public opinion about climate change has become
increasingly polarized along political lines, with liberals and Democrats expressing more concern
about the issue and greater support for policies to address it, while conservatives and Republicans
are more dismissive toward climate change, with some questioning its existence altogether (Funk
& Rainie, 2015; McCright & Dunlap, 2011).
To what extent does television news coverage of climate change contribute to these trends?
Television news, because of its visual immediacy and authoritative presentation, has long been
argued to have potent effects on audiences (Graber, 1988; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987). Decades of
research have shown that television news can influence public opinion directly (Zaller, 1992,
1996) and indirectly through processes such as agenda setting and framing (Iyengar, 1991;
Iyengar & Kinder, 1987). And as the form of television news has evolved from the straight-news
model of reporting on the broadcast networks to the opinionated, partisan-oriented style on
cable, the potential for television media’s persuasive and polarizing effects has intensified
(Feldman, 2011; Stroud, 2011).
This article reviews existing literature that applies various media effects theories to understand
the influence of television news on public opinion and knowledge related to climate change. The
article begins by examining how the television news landscape has changed from the 1950s until
present. This is followed by a discussion of journalistic norms and how these norms have shaped
network television news coverage of climate change. The article then reviews empirical research
findings about the effects of network news on public knowledge, opinion, and behavior relative to
climate change. The next section takes up the question of what role cable news has played in the
polarization of public opinion about climate change. As a whole, the review focuses primarily on
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the content and effects of network and cable TV news in the United States, which is the context
for most of the existing research on this topic; however, the article concludes by offering some
comparative perspective as well as directions for future research.
The Changing Landscape of U.S. Television News
The time period beginning with the widespread adoption of the television in the 1950s and
spanning until the rise of cable in the 1980s is often referred to as the “golden age of television
news”; during this time, network television was the dominant medium through which Americans
obtained news about current events and public affairs. Each evening, the “Big Three” networks—
ABC, CBS, and NBC—broadcast their nightly news programs to a relatively captive audience,
given the limited media alternatives at the time (Prior, 2007). These news programs helped fulfill
the networks’ public service obligation under the federal Communications Act of 1934. As such,
broadcast news was free of commercial pressures and assumed to be a democratic resource that
would hold the government accountable for its actions and provide citizens with the information
they need to be actively engaged in the political process. TV journalists, in turn, saw themselves
as documenters of fact, capable of and committed to reporting an “objective” reality (Baym,
2010). Network news programs were thus construed as the news of record, an authoritative
summary of the day’s events. As Weaver (1975) noted, when comparing television and newspaper
news:
There is hardly an aspect of the scripting, casting, and staging of a television news
program that is not designed to convey an impression of authority and omniscience. This
can be seen most strikingly in the role of the anchorman—Walter Cronkite is the
exemplar—who is positively god-like: he summons forth men, events, and images at
will; he speaks in tones of utter certainty; he is the person with whom all things begin and
end.
(Weaver, 1975, p. 84)
Accordingly, the network news anchors, particularly CBS’ Walter Cronkite, were among the most
trusted public figures in America (Ladd, 2012). Especially given the “singular worldview”
produced by the three nightly newscasts (Baym, 2010, p. 12) and the high degree of confidence
afforded to them by the public, television news was found to be capable of setting the public’s
agenda of issue priorities—that is, shaping the issues the public sees as most important—and
framing the way in which these issues are interpreted (Iyengar, 1991; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987).
Although these effects were conditional on audience characteristics and contextual factors, there
was nonetheless compelling evidence of network news’ influence (see Price & Feldman, 2009).
The landscape of television news has changed remarkably since the 1980s, as a result of advances
in technology, changes in media policy and ownership, and sociocultural developments (Baym,
2010). Today, news audiences, in general, are fragmented across myriad news sources, many
online. On television, the 24-hour cable news networks have challenged the networks news
outlets’ hold on the mass audience. News organizations not only compete with one another for
audiences’ attention but also with an increasing array of entertainment options (Prior, 2007). As
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a result, the effects of television news, such as agenda setting and framing, which were relatively
homogeneous during the network news era, are now more fractured and contingent on the
particular sources to which people turn (Stroud, 2011).
As the boundaries between news and entertainment blur and news organizations face increasing
competition, the substance and depth of TV news reporting has degraded (Hamilton, 2004). In
particular, contemporary network television news increasingly has shifted toward sensational
and celebrity-oriented, or “soft” coverage. Public trust in mainstream TV news outlets has
deteriorated, in part because of the public’s distaste for their tabloid-style reporting and also
because of increasing criticism of the mainstream press by political elites (Ladd, 2012). Network
news also has been plagued by scandals involving such high profile personalities as Dan Rather
and, more recently, Brian Williams, which have implicated the credibility of the once infallible TV
news anchor. Still, despite these challenges, in 2013, 65% of Americans watched network news
over the course of a month, and they did so for an average of 12 minutes per day, according to
Nielsen data (Olmstead, Jurkowitz, Mitchell, & Enda, 2013). In 2014, the nightly evening
newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC collectively drew 24 million viewers on average, a slight uptick
from the previous year (Mitchell & Holcomb, 2016).
CNN, the first national 24-hour cable news network in the United States, was founded in 1980,
but it was not until its real-time coverage of the Gulf War in 1991 that it began to challenge the
dominance of the network news outlets. Fox News and MSNBC entered the fray in 1996, and Fox
News soon became cable news’ prime-time ratings leader, a position it continued to hold at the
time of this writing in 2015 (Mitchell & Holcomb, 2016). Overall, in 2014, CNN, Fox News, and
MSNBC attracted a median prime-time viewership of 2.8 million, which represented a decline
from its peak in 2009 (Mitchell & Holcomb, 2016). In terms of cumulative audience, in 2012, the
three networks each attracted just over 40 million unique viewers per month who tuned in to
cable news for an hour or more (Pew Research Center, 2013). Prior (2013) more conservatively
estimates that about 10–15% of the voting age population watched cable news at a rate of 10
minutes or more per day.
The 24-hour cable news outlets look quite unlike their network news predecessors. Cable news
outlets have largely eschewed norms of objectivity and are best characterized as sources of
“opinionated news” (Feldman, 2011). Indeed, in 2012, cable news was dominated by commentary
and opinion rather than factual reporting (Pew Research Center, 2013), with CNN, Fox News, and
MSNBC together spending 26% more airtime on the former. According to Berry and Sobieraj
(2014), the expression of opinion on cable news routinely employs uncivil rhetoric, such as
name-calling, mockery, fear mongering, and falsehoods, which they term “outrage.” This turn
toward opinion and outrage, in part, reflects the economic reality of running a 24-hour news
network: Interviews and commentary are less expensive to produce than in-depth story packages
and live event coverage and, in many cases, are more engaging and thus more profitable (Berry &
Sobieraj, 2014).
The intensity of opinion on cable news is also fueled by the partisan orientation of the cable news
networks. Fox News, conceived as a conservative antidote to the mainstream media, was the first
national television news outlet to overtly identify with and project a political identity,
programming a prime-time lineup of political talk shows hosted by conservative commentators,
such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. In 2008, MSNBC rebranded itself as a liberal response to
Fox News; by 2012, it had become the most opinionated of the three outlets, headlined by
personalities such as Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews (Pew Research Center, 2013). Fox News
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and MSNBC routinely employ outrage to vilify their political opponents (Berry & Sobieraj, 2014;
Levendusky, 2013). CNN has not aligned itself politically, and as of 2012, was the only one of the
three networks to produce more straight news reporting than commentary, albeit by a small
margin (Pew Research Center, 2013). Likely as a result, CNN has slipped behind MSNBC in the
ratings (Mitchell & Holcomb, 2016), suggesting little public appetite for non-partisan news on
cable. Indeed, audiences are often drawn to media that support their existing partisan outlook
(Stroud, 2011), and opinionated, partisan-oriented cable news programs and personalities offer
an insular, like-minded community, within which audiences are able to validate their identities
and viewpoints (Berry & Sobieraj, 2014). Increasingly, the news outlets to which audiences turn
and trust are polarized along partisan and ideological lines, with conservatives more likely to
watch and trust Fox News, whereas liberals prefer a wider ranger range of news media, including
CNN, MSNBC, and network news (Mitchell, Gottfried, Kiley, & Matsa, 2014).
This context provides an important backdrop for understanding the nature of climate change
coverage on television news and its influence on public opinion. From the time climate change
emerged as a public issue in the late 1980s until now, network news has changed dramatically
both in terms of its content and the competition it now faces from other sources, with
increasingly less capacity and ambition to cover complex science issues such as climate change.
Cable news has grown from a nascent medium to a significant political force, which, as will be
discussed in subsequent sections, has become a megaphone for ideological viewpoints on climate
change. Importantly, even in a fragmented media environment largely dominated by online
communication, television remains a prominent medium through which citizens follow news
about science issues. Although in 2012, the Internet became the medium most likely to be named
by Americans as their primary source of science and technology information, about a third of
Americans (32%) reported television as their chief source of science and technology news
(National Science Board, 2014).
Journalistic Norms and U.S. Network TV News Coverage of Climate
Change
The construction of news on television and in other media is driven by particular professional
norms and practices. As a way to both simplify their work routines and foment audience
engagement, journalists rely on these norms and practices when deciding what stories to cover,
how much prominence to give them, and which elements of these stories to emphasize in their
retelling. For example, since the professionalization of journalism in the early 20th century,
journalists have been guided by a norm of objectivity (Kaplan, 2002). One manifestation of this is
an emphasis on fairness and balance, which is often fulfilled through a “he said-she said”
approach to reporting that gives equal time and weight to the two sides involved in debates over
controversial issues and, in so doing, may obscure the true state of knowledge in a particular
issue domain (Cunningham, 2003). At the same time, the work of news making has long stressed
the novelty of information as a defining principle (Deuze, 2005), which not only requires
delivering the news as quickly as possible but also prioritizing news that is, in fact, seen as
“new.” Bennett (2009) has written about journalists’ tendency to adopt norms of dramatization
and personalization; he characterizes these as informational biases that often detract from and
displace substantive, in-depth analysis of issues and problems. Personalization refers to the
tendency of journalists to use human-interest angles and to focus on the people and personalities
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that reside at the center of newsworthy events and issue debates, typically at the expense of
broader social, economic, or political contexts. Dramatization is a related norm that privileges
narratives, often with compelling personalities at their center, that are rife with conflict, crisis,
and spectacle. This focus on immediate crisis and controversy can foster neglect of enduring
problems and complex policy dynamics. As will be discussed in the remainder of this section, the
incompatibility between science and traditional news values has resulted in a dearth of coverage
of science and environmental issues in TV news, and when these issues are covered, they are
contorted to fit the norms of journalistic routines.
Science is a complex, incremental, often imperfect process that relies on a language of
uncertainty and probability; these characteristics are ill fitting with journalists’ desire for
novelty, dramatization, personalization, and balance. As a result, the complexity and nuance of
science often get lost in translation by journalists. For example, journalists may over-hype an
isolated scientific finding or remote risk for the sake of drama; the personalization norm may
lead to an emphasis on anecdotes and individuals rather than broader societal implications (see
Iyengar, 1991). Complex, slowly unfolding scientific stories may be ignored because they lack
novelty and a sense of imminent crisis and conflict. An overreliance on the norm of balance may
lead journalists to focus on the most polarized and vocal voices in a scientific debate rather than
the uncertain middle where scientific consensus typically resides (Revkin, 2007).
Andrew Revkin (2007), long-time environmental journalist and author of The New York Times’
“Dot Earth” blog, has written about the ways in which both the incremental nature of climate
change research and the often subtle nature of climate change itself are incompatible with the
news process. Climate change is often invisible; its impacts occur over time and space in such a
way that “they will not constitute news as we know it” (Revkin, 2007, p. 149). As a result,
journalists looking for a way to make climate change “news” may focus on the most provocative
elements of climate change—for example, by overstating links between extreme weather and
climate change. Indeed, scholars who have interviewed environmental journalists have found
that reporters often try to connect climate change to local, observable impacts as a way to make
climate change seem more relevant to their audiences and their editors (Gibson, Craig, Harper, &
Alpert, 2016; Hiles & Hinnant, 2014). However, Revkin warns:
After covering climate for over twenty years, my sense is that there will be no single new
finding that will generate headlines that galvanize public action and political pressure.
Even extreme climate anomalies, such as a decade-long superdrought in the West, could
never be shown to be definitively caused by human-driven warming.
(2007, p. 151)
Although scientists are confident that anthropogenic climate change increases the intensity and
frequency of extreme weather events, it is more difficult to demonstrate a causal link between
climate change and any specific weather event (Field et al., 2012); thus, journalists tread a fine
line when seeking to use this connection to increase the relevance of climate change for
audiences. This challenge may be particularly salient for television news journalists. For instance,
analyses have found that network television news broadcasts tend to dramatize climate change
by using a narrative of “climate tragedy” that emphasizes the disaster wrought by global
warming (Mayer, 2012) and by using “spectacular” imagery of threatened landscapes and
communities (Lester & Cottle, 2009).
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Notably, extreme weather does not necessarily foster connections to climate change in news
coverage. Ungar (2014) found that during the summer and fall of 2012, the network TV news
broadcasts only sporadically covered climate change, despite extreme weather events, including
the hottest month on record at the time (July 2012), a crop-destroying drought that affected half
the nation, destructive wildfires, and Hurricane Sandy. This was in stark contrast to the “social
scare” of 1988, when a similar set of events—record-breaking heat, dangerous air pollution, a
crop-destroying drought, wildfires, and Hurricane Gilbert—prompted extensive, ongoing
coverage of climate change. Indeed, in 1988, when climate change first made most news agendas,
the heat waves and drought served as a hook for the global warming story (Wilson, 2000).
Consistent with the dramatization norm, common metaphors in this coverage included
comparisons with nuclear war and the 1930s dustbowl (Wilson, 2000).
Ungar (2014) suggested several explanations for the change from 1998 to 2012. In 2012, the U.S.
economy overshadowed all other issues, scientific and grassroots activism had weakened
significantly, and climate change had become deeply polarized; thus, many political leaders
avoided the issue even if they considered it a credible threat. Moreover, according to Ungar, the
media were less proactive than in 1988, complicit in “indulging the silence in the political arena
and for the most part disassociating extensive coverage of extreme weather impacts from climate
change” (Ungar, 2014, p. 245). Ungar’s study is an important reminder that the broader socio-
political context interacts with journalistic norms to shape how the news media cover science
issues (see also Scheufele, 2014).
Boykoff and Boykoff (2007) have argued that journalistic norms such as drama, novelty,
personalization, and balance help explain why climate change has not garnered more accurate
coverage from U.S. news media. Through a content analysis of network television news segments
and newspaper articles between 1988 and 2004, they found that these norms contributed to the
construction of climate change as an issue of uncertainty. Specifically, they found that news
media attention to climate change was driven by real-world events—such as climate conferences
and hearings, major scientific reports, and presidential initiatives—that cohere with journalistic
norms. For example, the release of scientific reports and the contrarian claims challenging these
reports are contentious moments that feed journalistic norms of drama and novelty, while also
playing into journalists’ desire for balance. At the same time, the emergence of personalities,
such as scientists and politicians, in debates over climate science and policy drove coverage.
According to Boykoff and Boykoff (2007), “the personalization of the climate-change narrative
deflects attention from the roots of the problem, favoring the strategic moves of individuals over
the political contexts in which they operate” (p. 1197).
Consistent with Boykoff and Boykoff’s (2007) conclusions, Hart and Feldman (2014), in an
analysis of network TV news coverage of climate change between 2005 and 2011, found that news
broadcasts disproportionately relied on a conflict/strategy frame when discussing actions that
can be taken to address climate change; that is, news broadcasts emphasized the power struggles
and conflicts involved with influencing action rather than the defined benefits and costs that the
actions may offer. Moreover, when news stories used a conflict frame, they were less likely to
include information about the positive consequences of taking action. Mayer (2012) also found
that the primary frame used in network news coverage of climate change during the 2009
Copenhagen summit and the debate over cap and trade legislation in U.S. Congress emphasized
the “policy game,” or the contest and strategies involved in climate policy deliberations.
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The norm of balance can, and has been, exploited by those who challenge mainstream scientific
views on climate change (Oreskes & Conway, 2011). In an analysis of U.S. television news coverage
of climate change on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN from 1995–2004, Boykoff (2008) found that more
than two-thirds of news segments provided “balanced” coverage regarding anthropogenic
contributions to climate change, meaning that they gave equal attention and emphasis to
competing viewpoints on the issue. Boykoff further demonstrated a statistically significant
difference between television news coverage, based on ratios of coverage, and the scientific
consensus on climate change from 1996–2004. Boykoff concluded that “the institutionalized and
professional journalistic practice of balanced reporting has served to amplify a minority view that
human’s role in climate change is debated or negligent, and has concurrently engendered an
appearance of increased uncertainty regarding anthropogenic climate science” (Boykoff, 2008, p.
8).
In an additional analysis of coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN from 1995–2006, Boykoff
(2007b) found that TV news reports—rather than focusing on the convergent views on climate
change within the scientific community—instead drew attention to areas of disagreement and
conflict. According to interviews with climate scientists and environmental journalists, this
contentious framing was attributable to two interdependent factors: (a) the ability of climate
contrarians to use the objectivity-oriented media to challenge findings regarding human-caused
climate change with insufficient responses from the scientific community; and (b), scientists’
difficulty communicating uncertainty to the public and policymakers, particularly via the media.
For example, when reporting their findings, scientists tend to speak in cautious language, discuss
implications in terms of probabilities, and offer qualifiers to their findings. This opens the way
for climate contrarians to cast doubt on the integrity and conclusiveness of scientific research,
thereby granting them disproportionate visibility in the media.
Although recent analyses of print news content (Boykoff, 2007a; Nisbet, 2011) and journalistic
practices (Brüggemann & Engesser, 2014; Gibson et al., 2016; Hiles & Hinnant, 2014) suggest that
the tendency of U.S. journalists toward false balance in covering climate science may be ebbing,
there are additional consequences of journalists’ adherence to norms of objectivity. In an effort to
appear objective, journalists often rely heavily on official, government sources (Bennett,
Lawrence, & Livingston, 2007). As a result, journalists may focus on government actors in the
climate change space at the expense of citizen-led action and the efficacy of those actions. Hart
and Feldman (2014) found that network TV news coverage from 2005 to 2011 portrayed
government actions to address climate change as divorced from public opinion, rather than as a
response to calls for action by individuals and advocacy groups. Indeed, news stories rarely
mentioned the personal or political actions that individuals can take to address climate change or
the likely effectiveness of those actions. Similarly, Lester and Cottle’s (2009) visual analysis of TV
news coverage of climate change found that activists and NGO spokespeople, when pictured, were
often shown standing outside, statically, and not necessarily actively engaging with the
landscape behind them. The authors interpreted these images as distancing activists from efforts
toward political cooperation and possible solutions to climate change.
Hart and Feldman’s (2014) analysis also found that, although a majority of network television
news broadcasts discussed the impacts of climate change, and a majority of broadcasts discussed
possible actions to address climate change, impacts and actions were infrequently discussed in
the same broadcast. This means audiences were often informed about the threat of climate
change without any accompanying information about what can be done to reduce this threat, or
they received information about actions to address climate change without the context to
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appreciate why these actions may be necessary. This, too, may be the result of an adherence to
objective reporting. By offering solutions at the same time as presenting the problem, journalists
may be construed as advocating for the environment, a role that some actively resist (Hiles &
Hinnant, 2014). Indeed, past research on political reporting found that journalists avoid
providing “mobilizing information,” or tactical and logistical information in news stories that
allow people to act on pre-existing attitudes, because journalists see such information as
departing from objectivity (Lemert, 1984). Also, the norm of balance appears alive and well when
journalists cover climate policy and other mitigative actions, as this is an arena where journalists
still see room for reasonable debate and skepticism (Hiles & Hinnant, 2014). In television news
broadcasts, positive and negative efficacy information related to proposed climate change actions
was often paired together (Hart & Feldman, 2014); while this may reflect genuine debate and
conflict, the implication for the public may be an uneven sense that climate change is an
addressable problem.
The informational biases introduced by journalism norms and routines are exacerbated by
political economic issues, such as economic and competitive pressures faced by news
organizations, deadlines, and space and time constraints. The average length of the network
television news package in 2012 was 142 seconds, which was mostly unchanged since 2007 (Pew
Research Center, 2013). The complexity and uncertainty surrounding climate science—and all
science, really—cannot easily be done justice in the brief snapshots characteristic of television
news. Rather than accurately qualify and contextualize news coverage of scientific research and
reports, it may be easier for journalists to simply give voice to the contrarians who outright
challenge this science.
Moreover, issues that may be difficult for the public to understand may be displaced by stories
that will resonate more readily with viewers. In 2011, network TV news devoted just 2% of its
“news hole” to science and technology topics and 1% to environmental topics, compared to 8.2%
to the economy, 6.1% to election campaigns, and 5.3% to lifestyle (Pew Research Center, 2012).
According to the Tyndall Report, which tracks topical coverage on network news, in 2013, the
three network news broadcasts collectively devoted 37 minutes to stories related to climate
change. In comparison, the top story of the year, which was the Boston marathon bombing,
received a collective total of 432 minutes of coverage; the federal budget received 405 minutes,
and the healthcare reform rollout received 338 minutes.
Further, as science and environmental reporters are downsized at many news organizations,
coverage of climate change is increasingly folded into other news beats (Russell, 2010). This
means that reporters often lack expertise in climate science or policy, making it difficult for them
to understand and contextualize for audiences the associated scientific and political debates.
This, in turn, may lead to false balance and cursory reporting (Gibson et al., 2016). Indeed, even
before the economic downturn and seismic shifts in the news industry that occurred around
2008–2009, Wilson (2000) documented journalists’ misunderstanding of the scientific
consensus around global warming and of the scientific processes involved in global warming. Full
time environmental reporters—who are fast becoming a rarity—had more accurate knowledge
than other types of reporters. At the same time, climate change is increasingly covered as a
political issue by political reporters (Russell, 2010). Political reporting has a long track record of
relying on strategic or game frames that emphasize conflict between political elites and the self-
interested motivations of the actors involved (Patterson, 1993; Cappella & Jamieson, 1997). This
may help explain the disproportionate reliance of network news broadcasts on conflict framing in
their coverage of climate change. In addition, cutbacks at legacy newspapers mean that other
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media outlets can no longer depend as readily on “accountability news” from these outlets to
inform their own coverage (Boykoff & Yulsman, 2013). Wilson (2000) found in interviews with
environmental reporters that newspapers were the dominant source of climate change
knowledge for reporters (scientists and science journals placed a distant second and third). All
told, the technological changes and economic pressures that have contributed to the decline of
newspapers and to fierce competition among news organizations have led to more superficial
coverage of science and environmental issues on television.
Effects of U.S. Network TV News on Climate Change Opinion, Knowledge,
and Behavior
Based on the previous section, analyses of network television news coverage suggest that,
although coverage of climate change peaks around newsworthy events, environmental issues,
including climate change, are typically given short shrift. When television news does cover
climate change, stories tend to focus on dramatic impacts and imagery, conflicts between
political groups and personalities, and the uncertainty surrounding climate science and policy.
Less attention is given to the efficacy of actions that can be taken to mitigate climate change and,
in particular, the role individuals may play in addressing climate change. Given these trends,
what are the consequences of network television news coverage for public opinion, knowledge,
and behavior related to climate change?
According to the agenda-setting hypothesis (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), the more the news media
cover an issue, the more likely the public will be to view that issue as an important one. Overall,
the relative lack of television news coverage of climate change may help explain why the issue
consistently ranks low on the public’s list of national priorities; however, studies that explicitly
test television news’ agenda-setting effects in the context of climate change have revealed mixed
results. Using time series analysis, Brulle, Carmichael, and Jenkins (2012) found that the quantity
of media coverage of climate change—including in The New York Times, the major broadcast
nightly news programs, and weekly magazines—had a significant impact on public concern
about the threat posed by climate change, from 2002 to 2010. Additional analyses suggested that
elite political cues, advocacy efforts, and economic factors created fluctuations in media coverage
of climate change, which, in turn, influenced public perceptions. Krosnick, Holbrook, and Visser
(2000) examined the impact of the Clinton administration’s campaign in fall of 1997 to build
support for the Kyoto treaty and of the debate that followed. In comparing public opinion before
and after the campaign, the researchers found no evidence for an agenda-setting effect; that is,
despite a dramatic increase in media coverage, especially on television, there was no change in
the proportion of people who thought that global warming was likely to be an extremely serious
national problem. Methodological differences between the two studies—such as the time period
of study and dependent variable measurement—may help explain the discrepant findings.
Overall, however, it may be that agenda-setting effects are more complicated than simple media
coverage volume and are contingent on various factors and conditions.
Other studies have examined whether the way that climate change is framed by the news media
influences public opinion. Krosnick, Holbrook, Lowe, and Visser (2006) studied the effects of
news coverage of the 1995 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) landmark report,
which stated for the first time that human activities had most likely contributed to warming
global temperatures over the last century. National television news stories focused almost
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exclusively on the assertion that global warming existed; newspapers, on the other hand, carried
skeptical views, following initial statements of global warming’s existence. This created natural
variation in information flows across media and allowed Krosnick et al. to compare the influence
of media coverage that framed climate change as a certainty (i.e., on television) to the influence
of media coverage that accentuated the uncertainty of the science (i.e., in newspapers). In a
survey of Ohioans, they found that exposure to television news was positively associated and
exposure to newspapers negatively associated with beliefs in the existence of global warming;
however, these effects were highly contingent on individual attributes. The positive effects of
television news exposure accrued only to those who were trusting of scientists and who had
higher levels of education and thus greater cognitive skills to recall information from news
stories over time. The negative effects of newspaper exposure manifested only among those who
were trusting of scientists but low in education, and thus more likely to forget the initial message
endorsing climate science and remember only the more recent skeptical message. All told, these
findings suggest that the media’s use of uncertainty framing and tendency toward false balance
when covering climate change have important consequences for public opinion.
Corbett and Durfee’s (2004) experimental study corroborates these findings. This study found
that, when individuals were exposed to news stories that included claims questioning the veracity
of climate change, particularly absent any challenge or broader research context, this
undermined their certainty about climate change. Malka, Krosnick, Debell, Pasek, and Schneider
(2009) similarly found that including an interview with a climate skeptic in television news
reports reduced perceptions of scientific consensus, belief in the existence of human-caused
global warming, the perceived importance of global warming, and concern about its
consequences. Other studies point to the importance of contextual factors beyond media
coverage. For example, Scruggs and Benegal (2012) found that deteriorating economic
conditions, not skeptical news coverage, was the main driver of decreasing public concern for
climate change between 2008 and 2011.
Research also has shown that the effects of news exposure on public opinion about climate
change are highly contingent on political ideology and partisanship. In Krosnick et al.’s (2000)
study of public opinion changes as a result of the fall 1997 debate on the Kyoto treaty, they found
that at the aggregate level, opinions toward global warming seemed largely unaltered. Before the
fall 1997 debate began, the general public tended to endorse the views advocated by President Bill
Clinton—in that they believed in global warming’s existence, saw it as undesirable, and agreed
that action should be taken to combat it—and they maintained these views after the campaign.
However, there were large differences over time between Democrats and Republicans.
Specifically, Democrats moved toward the administration’s view and Republicans moved away,
thereby widening gaps between the two groups as news coverage increased over the course of the
debate. A decade later, during which time climate change became intensely polarized along
political lines (McCright & Dunlap, 2011), Hindman (2009) found that political ideology was the
strongest and most consistent predictor of individuals’ beliefs about whether there is solid
evidence for global warming and whether global warming is due to human activity. Moreover,
consistent with Krosnick et al.’s (2000) findings, ideological belief gaps regarding the existence
of global warming intensified under conditions of greater media coverage. These ideological
differences may be the result of party sorting: When political elites take clear sides on an issue,
citizens are familiarized with these cues via the media and ultimately follow cues from the
political elites whom they trust (Guber, 2012; Zaller, 1992).
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Public knowledge about climate change also has been considered as a dependent variable in
analyses of television news media’s effects. When it comes to general knowledge of current
events, research has documented a negative (Eveland & Scheufele, 2000) or null relationship
(Pan, Ostman, Moy, & Reynolds, 1994; Vincent & Basil, 1997) between network TV news use and
knowledge. Results from Pan et al. (1994) suggested that network television exposure might
facilitate the acquisition of basic, image-oriented information but not necessarily more complex,
abstract information, which is better learned through print news. Consistent with this previous
research, Kahlor & Rosenthal (2009) found no significant relationship between general TV news
exposure and knowledge of global warming based on their analysis of an online survey conducted
in 2005. The authors attributed the lack of relationship between news media use and knowledge
to the dearth of coverage of climate change and the tendency for any existing coverage to
oversimplify and confuse the issue.
Some scholars have recognized that different types of news, even within the same medium, may
have different effects. Climate change news is not monolithic; rather, the nature of climate
change information found in the American news media is highly heterogeneous. At the same
time, active news audiences selectively attend to information that reflects their prior needs,
interests, and motivations (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973) and are therefore unlikely to pay
equal attention to all types of news. Thus, several studies have focused on the effects of
individuals’ attention to news coverage that reflects different topical emphases, namely political
news versus science news (Hart, Nisbet, & Myers, 2015; Nisbet, Cooper, & Ellithorpe, 2015; Zhao,
Leiserowitz, Maibach, & Roser-Renouf, 2011). This is because coverage of climate change in the
context of national politics is more prone to false balance and conflict framing, whereas science
news coverage is more likely to accurately and consistently communicate the established
scientific facts. Accordingly, this research has found that political news attention either was
unrelated to knowledge about climate change (Hart et al., 2015) or reduced knowledge specifically
among conservatives, thereby amplifying ideological knowledge gaps (Nisbet et al., 2015).
Political news attention also was negatively related to belief in climate change (Zhao et al., 2011)
and had a polarizing effect by increasing perceptions of harm and climate policy support
specifically among moderates and conservatives (Hart et al., 2015). Attention to science news, on
the other hand, had a positive effect on climate change knowledge (Hart et al., 2015; Nisbet et al.,
2015) and beliefs about global warming (Hart et al., 2015; Zhao et al., 2011). Moreover, science
news attention decreased ideological knowledge gaps by increasing knowledge among
conservatives (Nisbet et al., 2015) and likewise weakened attitude polarization by increasing
perceptions of harm and, in turn, climate policy support among conservatives (Hart et al., 2015).
Given the capacity for news media to activate concern for and knowledge of climate change,
researchers have explored whether there may also be a link between television news use and pro-
environmental behavior. These studies have found that news media use, and particularly
television news use, is positively correlated with such behaviors as recycling, energy
conservation, green consumerism, and pro-environmental political advocacy (Arlt, Hoppe, &
Wolling, 2011; Holbert, Kwak, & Shah, 2003; Huang, 2016; Östman, 2014). The mechanism for this
influence remains unclear, however. It may be that news media help increase awareness of
environmental issues such as climate change (Östman, 2014), or they may alter perceived social
norms surrounding environmental behavior (Liao, Ho, & Yang, 2016), which in turn spur
behavioral engagement; news coverage also may elicit emotional reactions such as fear, guilt, or
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hope, which may drive behavioral changes (Holbert et al., 2003; Östman, 2014). These theoretical
mechanisms have not been directly tested; thus, more research is needed to better understand the
nature of television news’ direct and indirect effects on behavior.
The effects of other characteristics of television news coverage of climate change, such as the
focus on threat information in the absence of a clear efficacy message, and the use of spectacular
imagery, have not been explicitly studied in the context of network news; however, the results
from several experimental studies are telling. For example, Feldman and Hart (2015) found that
news stories that paired information about political actions to address climate change with
information about climate impacts increased participants’ hope and decreased their fear relative
to a story that only discussed the impacts of climate change; hope, in turn, was a driver of
climate-related activism. Similarly, Chadwick (2015) found that exposure to a message that
emphasized the possibility that individuals can take action to improve the climate increased
subjective feelings of hope. This may mean that network TV news stories that systematically
exclude efficacy information are hindering hopeful emotional reactions among the public and
perhaps facilitating apathy-inducing fear or cynicism. Another prominent feature of network
news coverage of climate change is its emphasis on political conflict; prior research has shown
that conflict framing in TV news—by focusing on the self-interested motivations of political
actors—can induce high levels of cynicism toward government, politics, and policy formation
(Cappella & Jamieson, 1997). Although untested, it is possible that a similar dynamic is at play in
the specific context of climate change.
Finally, one of the attributes of television news that distinguishes it from other news forms is its
use of moving images. Images can provide an interpretive frame for a news story, thereby guiding
individuals’ attention and structuring their perceptions of the information contained within the
story (Messaris & Abraham, 2001). In particular, because of their analogic and indexical qualities,
images often seem more closely linked to reality than words and are thus more likely to be taken
at face-value, rendering them especially powerful framing devices (Messaris & Abraham, 2001).
Because of the salience and richness of visuals, they also help attract audience interest and aid in
remembering information in news stories (Graber, 1990), and may play a particularly important
role in shaping individuals’ emotional reactions to climate change (Leiserowitz, 2006).
Although no existing research has isolated the effects of visual imagery in television news
broadcasts about climate change, O’Neill and colleagues (O’Neill, Boykoff, Niemeyer, & Day,
2013; O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009) used Q-sort methodology to study audience reactions to
static visual images often used in news stories about climate change. They found that spectacular,
threat-depicting climate change images, such as images of floods and droughts, increased the
perceived importance of climate change. These same images, however, made individuals feel that
there was nothing they could do about climate change.
In sum, existing research indicates several important effects of network news on public opinion
and knowledge about climate change. First, there is some—albeit mixed—evidence for an
agenda-setting effect, such that the amount of media coverage devoted to climate change
predicts the public’s level of concern about the issue. In terms of framing effects, when coverage
accentuates uncertainty or controversy, this promotes public skepticism about climate change. At
the same time, exposure to television news coverage may signal audiences to follow elite partisan
cues on climate change, thereby leading to ideological polarization in climate change attitudes
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and knowledge. This polarization is enhanced when audiences attend to climate change coverage
in the context of national politics but is reduced when they attend to science news coverage of
climate change.
Overall, television news exposure does little to promote climate change knowledge; however, this
also depends on the type of news to which people pay attention, with science-oriented coverage
increasing knowledge and politically oriented coverage decreasing knowledge. Finally, although
more research is needed, there is indication that some of the characteristics of television news
coverage of climate change—such as conflict framing, limited efficacy information, and
spectacular, threat-depicting imagery and narratives—may contribute to public disengagement
around climate change and particularly may foster a sense of disempowerment and cynicism
among the public.
U.S. Cable News as a Source of Public Opinion Polarization About Climate
Change
Given the opinionated, often one-sided, partisan-oriented content on U.S. cable news outlets, the
chief question pertaining to cable news vis-à-vis climate change is whether it has contributed to
the polarization of public opinion. Notably, the popularity of the cable news networks, especially
Fox News, grew over the same time period that witnessed widening partisan gaps in public
perceptions of global warming. For example, cable news ratings increased fairly steadily from the
late 1990s onward, peaking in 2008–2009 (Mitchell & Holcomb, 2016); the opinion gulf between
liberals and conservatives followed a similar pattern (McCright & Dunlap, 2011). During this time,
there was also very strong ideological sorting among the partisan electorate, as the mean
Republican and Democrat each became more ideologically consistent in their political outlooks.
Better educated, more politically attentive Democrats tended to consistently take a strong liberal
position on most issues, including climate change, and their Republican counterparts tended to
taken an even stronger conservative position (Abramowitz, 2010; Guber, 2012; Levendusky,
2009).
In the context of this broader pattern of party sorting, opinionated cable news may play a role in
opinion polarization (Levendusky, 2013). Research on partisan selective exposure demonstrates
that partisan identity guides media choice (e.g., Stroud, 2011). Republicans and conservatives are
more likely to watch Fox News than Democrats and liberals, whereas Democrats and liberals are
more likely to watch MSNBC and CNN. If political partisans gravitate toward different media
outlets, and if those media cover climate change differently, it stands to reason that the content
on those media outlets may have something to do with their divergent beliefs. As will be
discussed throughout this section, the three leading cable news outlets—CNN, Fox News, and
MSNBC—do indeed cover climate change in distinctive ways, and these differences are reflected
in their audience’s beliefs about climate change. Through a reinforcing dynamic of selective
exposure and partisan media effects, cable news shapes and polarizes public opinion about
climate change.
Fox News’s overt conservative orientation has made it a hospitable place for the climate change
denial movement in the United States to effectively spread and amplify its message discrediting
climate science. Fox News has been used to distribute findings produced by conservative think
tanks—often with funding from the fossil fuel industry—that purported to challenge existing
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